[5] In 1539, Suleiman decided that Mihrimah should be married to Rüstem Pasha,[14] probably from Croatia, who had been seized through the devshirme and rose to become Governor of Diyarbakır and later, Grand Vizier.

[25] Five years later, in 1544, Süleyman selected her husband to become Grand Vizier,[26] a post he held until his death in 1561, bar a two-year interval when he was dismissed to assuage popular outrage following the execution of Şehzade Mustafa in 1553.

[44] After Hürrem's death, Mihrimah also became Süleyman's advisor and confidant,[45] urging him to undertake the conquest of Malta in 1565,[46] and sending him news and forwarding letters for him when he was absent from the capital.

[45] She enlisted the help of the Grand Vizier Semiz Ali Pasha, and promised to outfit four hundred ships at her own expense.

[46] Temporary closures of the western and/or eastern grain markets, food shortages and poor harvests led to several crises in the sixteenth century.

The citizens of the Dalmatian Republic of Ragusa managed to survive thanks to supplies of Ottoman grain which Mihrimah helped to facilitate.

During the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, several Ragusan ships sailed in the Christian fleet, as Piyale Pasha reported to the Porte.

[51] When the French refused to return two Turkish women who had been captured at sea by Henry III's brother-in-law and made members of Catherine de' Medici's court, Mihrimah and her niece, Ismihan Sultan intervened on their behalf.

[52] When Cığalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha married her granddaughter Saliha Hanimsultan in October 1576, Mihrimah provided him with a huge dowry including gold and valuable clothes.

Her most famous foundations are the two Istanbul mosque complexes that bear her name, both designed by her father's chief architect, Mimar Sinan.

[5] The second Mihrimah Sultan Mosque beside the Edirne Gate (Turkish: Edirnekapı) in the western wall of the old city of Istanbul was built between 1562 and 1565.

[5] Mimar Sinan, a sixteenth-century architect, was allegedly in love with Mihrimah[5] after supposedly seeing her for the first time while she was accompanying her father on his Moldova Campaign.

Some claim that he built the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque in Üsküdar to resemble the silhouette of a woman with her skirt sweeping the ground.